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Shattered Star #44: Back Together Again

At the end of last session, we left some of the party in peril: they’d gatecrashed a large party presided over by none other than Sorshen herself!

As the riotous mob of revellers surged toward Narfu and Sarif, Narfu stepped forward and shouted loudly that Sorshen was a fake! He brandished the platinum plate recently recovered from the giant’s lair as proof. The mob ignored him and continued charging.

However, several things then happened. As they reached the party, the revellers winked out of existence as if they had never been. (And when the last them disappeared, so did Sorshen herself!) At the same time, several giant spiders appeared on the stairs behind the party and attacked!

Meanwhile…

The rest of the party surged through the Grey Maiden’s bathing room and hurled themselves through the doors into the teleportation room. One by one, the heroes used the teleport plate to rush to their friends’ aid. Quickly, only Karelia remained, but at that point near-disaster struck. The inncubus that had bedevilled the party chose this moment to reappear on the teleportation plate! Karelia—alone and cut off—cleverly activated the teleportation plate and sent the inncubus after the rest of the party!

Meanwhile…

The battle raged on. With the arrival of several other members of the party, Narfu and Sarif redoubled their efforts to cut down their foes. However, as well as more giant spiders several grotesque lemures had appeared and slowed down Thaladan, Zainnis and Peta from reaching their companions by conjuring several pungent clouds of noxious fog.

However, although the heroes faced many foes they all seemed individually weak. As the party pushed forward into the room a lightning bolt suddenly flashed down the stairs catching most of them. When the flash cleared, the party saw a hideous creature—later identified as a sinspawn but one which clearly had powerful spellcasting powers—hovering in midair in in front of them.

Grooble who could already fly gave Peta the gift of flight as she flew up to do battle with the fell creature. Narfu—recently enlarged after quaffing a potion—engaged the creature with his newly acquired enchanted longspear.

Meanwhile…

The inncubus so recently banished by Karelia returned on the wings of another teleport. Karelia—with little option—cloaked herself in invisibility. After some fruitless searching, the inncubus teleported away to join the general melee raging elsewhere.

Meanwhile…

By now, the sinspawn battling the rest of the heroes was injured and engaged in melee with Peta and Narfu. The arrival of the inncubus caused concern among the party until Zainnis started to shoot it full of arrows. It badly injured Narfu, but moments later was forced to flee via a teleport spell as it was badly injured and near death (again).

With her last remaining ally gone, the fell sinspawn spellcaster did not last much longer. When it finally fell, the party breathed a great sigh of relief. Moments later, Karelia finally rejoined her fiends after having stumbled into a stinking cloud moments after using the teleportation plate.

The party looted the sinspawn’s corpse retrieving several wands and a magical guisarme and then began to search for a way out. It was not long before Sarif discovered a hitherto unknown secret door and also accidentally triggered a teleportation pad and disappeared. Grooble immediately dived after him and the party with little other option—and not a few misgivings—followed the pair.

Luckily, the teleport led back to the first teleportation room which had initially split up the party and thus the heroes were saved from further blunders. Now low on resources, they returned to the Grey Maiden’s camp to ask if they could rest there. The Grey Maidens agreed and so the party could finally relax…

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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